Taking Sides Issue 2: Does Globalization Threaten Cultural Diversity?
Julia Galeota and Philippe Legrain
In Taking Sides Issue 2, Julia Galeota and Philippe Legrain argue their side of whether globalization threatens cultural diversity. Thanks to technological advances, people all over the world are better able to communicate with and travel to other countries. This increased interaction leads to a mixing of various cultures known as cultural globalization. In this Issue, the two authors are concerned with what happens when one cultures spreads at a much faster rate and dominates other cultures. Both use the spread of American culture as their main example, citing American movies being watched worldwide and the popularity of the English language. The following summarized articles debate whether these cultural changes are positive or negative. Julia Galeota’s article is first, which contends that globalization and, more specifically, American globalization is negative and amounts to cultural imperialism. Galeota is convinced that America’s cultural imperialism is forcing other cultures to go extinct. Galeota believes America and its corporations do this out of the belief that the American way of life is the superior one. To highlight this, she points to the very first American settlers
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Critics believe that if more countries held the same cultural beliefs (American ones) that there would be less violence and fewer arguments between countries. Galeota wholeheartedly rallies again the idea of a one-culture world. She argues that even if all the countries in the world were to hold the same cultural beliefs, it certainly doesn’t guarantee there won’t be fighting. Plus, in her opinion, who would want a world without a variety of unique cultures? She elaborates, “The complex fabric of diverse cultures around the world is a fundamental and indispensable basis of humanity”
In this weeks reading of “Taking Sides”, Richard Abrams accepts they did come up short on the grounds that they tried to uphold a standard arrangement of qualities upon the individuals who are socially diverse and did not want to stand up to the imbalances that existed in American culture. Progressives failed in what it, or what the individuals who formed it considered to be its primary goal.Furthermore, that was, well beyond everything else, to restore or keep up the traditional agreement on a specific perspective of the universe, a specific arrangement of qualities, and a specific heavenly body of behavioral modes in the nation's business, industry, social relations, and legislative issues. Such a perspective, such values, such modes were
Critics of globalization have accused globalization of causing homogeneity thereby threatening cultural diversity. Cultural diversity, by definition, would be said to be a situation whereby each group of people is allowed to retain their cultural practices and beliefs without contamination with other cultural practices and beliefs from other cultures from across the world. Globalization is accused of hindering cultural diversity because it has enabled people from varied cultures across the world to interact thereby contaminating there cultures. For instance, in the case of the people of Kumasi entry by foreigners is accused to have contaminated the culture of the people living in the region.
Furthermore, cultural conflict reinforces cultural domination or ethno-centricity (Mayer, 2000). According to Mayer (2000), culture are common norms, values, practices, and
The article written by Lisa Lowe refers to globalization as it relates to the United States. This article touched on the transitions which occurred. The shifts from culture in neighborhoods due to migrants arriving. This article also referred to the critiques of globalization. It’s important to know who is against or for this process. As it provides perspective to those who want understand motives behind the negative stance.
The issue of American culture and its globalization has raised a lot of controversy. “The era of globalization” is becoming the preferred term to describe the current times. The term Americanization has been around for years. It was first used when the United States was being heavily immigrated into. The new Americans began to enjoy the freedoms associate with our country and gradually began to act less like a foreigner and more like a real American.
Contemporary globalization is an exceptionally multifaceted phenomenon and can be defined as "an intensification of cross-national cultural, economic, political, social and technological interactions that lead to the establishment of transnational structures and the global integration of cultural, economic, environmental, political and social processes on global, supranational, national, regional and local levels" (Huynen, Martens & Hilderink, 2005). The very nature of the American society has experienced insightful and compound changes due to globalization that has brought with it both new opportunities and risks. Similarly, the impacts of globalization
Source I’s perspective is the view that through globalization; many cultures are destroyed and that this diminishes society. This source outlines a
Some argue that globalization will, on the long term, bring all cultures as a unique Western, if not Americanized, culture, while others argue that some cultures will persist in order to keep their own essence and therefore avoid the homogenization of all cultures. Alongside pure tradition, global conflicts, contradictory political regimes and the diversity of economic systems, some cultures are bound to face issues when trying to fully fit in a global western culture, and that is why cultures are adaptable to one another, but with some limits that we will express in this essay.
When it comes to globalization, everyone may have a different vision of it’s outcome. For Marcelo Gleiser, the author of “Globalization: Two visions of the Future of Humanity”, a completely globalized world may result in a dystopia. In contrast, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, the author of “A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization” and Tanveer Ali, the creator of “The Subway Falafel Sandwich and the Americanization of Ethnic Food” may think of globalization as other cultures sharing each other’s components to interact on a new level and spurring a more “open-minded” (Ali 27) individual.
Cultural individuality and distinctiveness is the pride of every nation. All communities rejoice in the richness and exoticness of their own cultural symbols, be it dressing, architecture, language or way-of-life. With the dawn of globalization, however, cultural variety and distinguishing characteristics are vanishing; giving rise to a monoculture common to all. While this may be a harbinger of unity and relatedness among all people of the world, it also damages the unique cultural identities they once took pride in. This paper discusses the effects of globalization on culture, along with its positive and negative effects. Since the effects of globalization on culture are non-exhaustive, it is attempted to incorporate a few of the most
In truth, its history dates back as far as the sixteenth century, following the first great expansion of European capitalism, which resulted in slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism (Ezema, 2009). Throughout history, world powers have continually sought to perpetuate their way of life: from the philosophy and mythology of the Greeks, the political ideologies and linguistics of the Romans, and the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance (Daghrir, 2013). Thus, it comes as no surprise that the aftermath of the post-war era, which saw the collapse of Soviet communism and the emergence of the United States as the sole hegemon, saw the aggressive spread of American ideals, values, and beliefs. Indeed, just as American goods flooded world markets in the post-World War II era; American culture now penetrates every continent through the aggressive development of mass communications, trade expansion and information technology.
Globalization is an undeniable phenomenon of our modern societies. Global patterns keep spreading in many fields of our everyday life: food, economy, marketing, and last but not least, culture. Cultural products are indeed very often produced following the American pattern and exported to various places around the world. Hollywood blockbusters are huge hits in many different countries, our radios broadcast more and more American songs and even our national singers choose to sing in English rather than in their native language. Globalization is caused by many different factors. Cross-border processes such as interregional trade, employment, population migration and military conquest or colonization probably constitute the main factors (Holton, 2000, 141, 149).
Cultural globalization has negative aspects because of cultural toadyism, cultural uniformity, and its political influence.
Globalization is commonly examined by simply dissecting its political and economic consequences. As a result, the effects on culture are often overlooked. According to U.S. Census projections, by 2043 non-Hispanic whites will become a minority consisting of 47 percent of the U.S. population (Barreto, et al 1). Examining the world as a whole, a 2015 study by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division found that between 1950-2000, an average of 2.8 million people per year migrated to North America and Europe. From 2000-2015, that rate accelerated to 4.1 million per year. What is more, this study projects that from 2015-2050, 91 million people are expected to migrate to high-income countries and produce an 82 percent increase in population in destination countries. Clearly, the prospect of steady migration and the continuing effects of globalization are expected to produce more multicultural societies. Unfortunately for many, “foreign” has become synonymous with danger (Rothkopf). The debate between cultural unity and cultural plurality dates back to the Greeks where they questioned universal human goodness and the differences between societies. More than two millennia later, the issue of a common versus diverse human culture remains contentious. This paper argues that a diverse human culture is more desirable than a universal culture because states and societies benefit from promoting and protecting diversity.
Globalization simply defined is the intensification of global interactions. The case studies we have studied depict two of the main types of globalization. Economic Globalization, which is the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and tangible services, and Cultural Globalization, the exchange of materials and symbols that represent facts, meaning values and beliefs. When Globalization occurs it usually has a major impact on indigenous cultures. Optimists or “champions” state that the relationship between culture and globalization has positive effects as it creates a balance between nations. Conversely, critics state that relationships between the two have negative effects, leading to the loss or deterioration of a